MEMORANDUM
TO:                   Interested Parties
FROM:           DNC War Room
DATE:             October 16, 2020
RE:                  Trump’s Failed Jobs and Manufacturing Record

Last night, Americans saw a familiar scene – a one-hour presentation from President Trump that included debunked claims, outright false attacks, incoherent rants, but absolutely no closing argument to convince voters he deserves a second term in office.

It’s hard to blame him. If Trump were forced to tell the truth about the disastrous results of his presidency, it would include a string of historic failures of presidential leadership. A third wave of coronavirus cases and more than 215,000 Americans dead. The worst recession since the Great Depression. Millions have lost health care and coverage for millions more actively threatened. A lost trade war to China. Diminished standing in the world. Trump doesn’t have a message problem. He has a facts problem. 

In the closing days of the campaign, the DNC War Room will release a series of memos to highlight these truths Trump can’t accept but that the American people know all too well, starting with the economy. 

Put simply, Donald Trump is the worst jobs president in modern history. Despite claims that we’d get tired of “winning,” Trump failed to deliver on his promises and American workers paid the price. He inherited a strong economy and ran it into the ground. Job growth slowed, factories weren’t pouring back in, and the manufacturing sector fell into recession on Trump’s watch, even before the pandemic hit.  And after repeatedly promising that he would get tough on China, he suffered a humiliating defeat on trade at the hands of Beijing that cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, sent farms into bankruptcy and raised costs for consumers.  

Now, the economic recovery has slowed down and only half the jobs lost during the pandemic have returned because of Trump’s failed COVID-19 response. Americans were promised a jobs president, instead they got a fraud.

Trump said he’d be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created” but he’s the worst jobs president in modern history.

• 5 million more Americans are unemployed than when” Trump took office.

• The unemployment rate is the highest going into an election year and he is the first president to oversee a period of net job loss in his first four years since WWII.

• Job growth was slower in Trump’s first three years than it was under the economy he inherited from President Obama.

• Trump’s failure to get coronavirus under control has hurt America’s labor market recovery and cost millions of jobs compared to other industrialized countries.

• The job recovery continues to slow, even as only half of the jobs lost have returned. And layoffs continue to mount as over 25 million Americans still rely on unemployment benefits.

Trump pushed manufacturing into recession and lost tens of thousands of factory jobs, even before the pandemic.

• The U.S. economy lost over 160,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump took office.

• In 2019, the manufacturing industry entered a recession, bottoming out at its lowest level since the Great Recession and shrinking to the smallest share of the economy since WWII.

• Trump’s trade war with China cost over 175,000 factory jobs even before the pandemic.

• Midwest states lost factory jobs last year, and tens of thousands more as Trump failed to respond to the pandemic. Since Trump took office:
  • Michigan lost 55,100 manufacturing jobs.
  • Ohio lost 26,200 manufacturing jobs.
  • Pennsylvania lost 25,000 manufacturing jobs.
  • Wisconsin lost 9,200 manufacturing jobs.

• Manufacturers outsourced hundreds of thousands more factory jobs under Trump, and fewer offshore jobs came back to the U.S. last year than under the last year of the Obama-Biden administration.

Trump promised auto manufacturers would move back from overseas — instead tens of thousands of auto workers lost their jobs on his watch.

• The auto industry has lost over 35,000 jobs since Trump took office, as Ford and GM cut 10,000 jobs on his watch even before the pandemic.

• In 2019, the auto industry cut jobs at the fastest rate since the Great Recession.

• Auto manufacturing investment declined during Trump’s first three years and car factories are not coming back like Trump claims.

• Auto sales declined in 2019 and were forecast to fall in 2020 even before COVID.

Trump’s trade war wreaked havoc on manufacturers, farmers and consumers. He then settled for a trade deal that didn’t undo the damage he caused and that China isn’t living up to.

• Trump settled for a phase one trade deal with China that failed to address the structural issues that sparked his trade war in the first place, and didn’t even undo the damage it caused.

• The phase one trade deal only secured vague pledges to buy U.S. products, which China isn’t living up to, and isn’t expected to boost growth.

• Trump’s trade war cost families over $1,200 a year even after Trump’s phase one trade deal.

• Farm bankruptcies and debt skyrocketed as farmers struggled amid Trump’s trade war. Farms are still being shuttered despite Trump’s farm bailout, and farmers’ export markets may be gone for good because of Trump’s reckless policies.

• Trump has nothing to show for his trade war that inflicted pain on workers, farmers, and consumers. Our trade deficit in goods hit an all-time high in August, export growth has slowed, and our workers and businesses still face an uneven playing field.